Well that’s because he comes from mining. We have plenty of lithium in the oceans waiting to get harvested.
We also have the technology to harvest lithium from the oceans.
The issue, for now, with lithium from seawater is the cost of the extraction techniques at scale - the economic feasibility isn't there for now.
> Although multiple groups of researchers have devised ways to harvest lithium from the ocean, none of the methods are currently practical. “It’s technically possible to extract lithium from seawater,”
although:
> Still, the biggest challenge in devising a practical system for extracting lithium from the ocean is the metal’s ultralow concentration in seawater. There are many sources of salt-enriched water with high lithium concentrations, including salty lakes, brine used in geothermal power plants, and brackish water generated from oil and gas production. Some researchers have started to look at those sources as a more practical starting point than ocean water. “If the lithium concentration starts out 10–100 times higher, then electrochemical systems could be economically feasible,” Cui says.
[0] https://cen.acs.org/materials/inorganic-chemistry/Can-seawat...